The paper investigates the causes and consequences of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis on five Eastern European countries, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Russia, with the purpose of identifying the common points and the differences between these economies in terms of crisis impact, with an accent on their capital markets. Our findings indicate that although the countries under scrutiny have displayed somehow different paths of economic development before the crisis, they were affected, to a higher or smaller extent, by the financial crisis. Also, the crisis was felt in these countries, at least in terms of impact on capital markets, with different lags: in some of these countries the crisis hit at beginning of 2008, while in others signs of the crisis were visible only towards the end of 2008.